Mount Sir Donald Northwest Ridge

Update July 2017:
Google killed the Picasaweb photo service so the photos in this post no longer click through to larger versions. Suck it Google. Here's an album containing the photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/NssTA3vKczyUGcm43

Ross and I have been hoping to climb Sir Donald for years. Schedules, weather, and motivation have all played a part in preventing us from ever setting foot on the mountain. This weekend the stars finally aligned and we climbed the northwest ridge on Saturday.

The NW Ridge of Sir Donald is one of those climbs that you hear a lot about, often for all the wrong reasons. Tales abound of unplanned overnights and epic descents. In fact we witnessed examples of both unfold on this very same weekend last year during one of our previous pseudo-attempts. The climb is listed in Steck and Roper's "Fifty Classic Climbs of North America" and attracts people from all over the world.

To make a long story short we reached the top in 5.5 hours. It was mainly 4th class exposed climbing with short pitches of 5th class. We simulclimbed with about 15m of rope between us and placed the odd piece of gear. You don't really need a rope for most of the climb but it seemed easier to just leave the rope on rather than switching back-and-forth when it was needed for a short section. There was a surprising amount of micro-route finding on the way up. This sounds a funny thing to say about a ridge climb (just follow the freakin' ridge!) but the features are so big that were constantly peaking around corners and checking out ledges to find the path of least resistance.





We topped out at around 11:00am and sat down for a minute to have a snack. Clouds were boiling up in the Beaver Valley on the east side of Sir Donald while the west side was completely clear. We headed south over the summit to find the west face bypass. This would lead us all the way back across the west face to a point on the NW ridge about 1/3 of the way below summit. The ridge is festooned (a great word!) with slings and back-off anchors all over the place and we used them liberally to make short rappels in between sections of frightening down climbing. We each had a few "yeash!" moments at the down climbing bits but eventually we found our way to the first of 12 bolted rap stations and from here we knew we had it made.





It was a loooong 6.5 hours down from the summit. At last we made the final rappel and hit terra firma. Still in good spirits we decided to spend another night at the picturesque bivy site rather than packing up and heading out right away. It's not like we needed an excuse though; look at this place, it's amazing.



In fact staying another night was doubly entertaining for me. It meant that Ross, who had somehow lost all of his cutlery on the hike in, had to eat another meal of soup and pasta using nothing but a pointy stick.

That's the great thing about climbing with Ross; it's usually not the climb itself that you remember the most afterwards.

Terminal Traverse

On Saturday, your guest blogger (Brenda) accompanied Andrew on the Terminal Traverse.

We left after work on Friday and slept at the Illecillewaet parking lot (yay van!). Saturday morning began portentously; the alarm did not go off as planned, and we got up at 4:40 instead of 4:00. Our bleary-eyed cereal consumption was marred by the fact that we had accidentally brought whipping cream, not milk. Undaunted, we set off at 5am.

The trip began with the hike to Perley Rock. It's a tiring 3-hour uphill grind, but Perley Rock itself is a scenic spot beside the glacier. A perfect place for a snack.



From Perley Rock, we continued up the snow and crossed a corner of the glacier to get to the base of the south ridge of South Terminal Peak. Here, Andrew leads your guest blogger jauntily up the glacier. Our route up is the right skyline.



At the base of the ridge, we stopped for a snack and got ourselves ready to climb. The route itself was not always obvious - there was a good deal of poking around, wondering where to go next. The rock was good, however, and the climbing generally fun.



It took longer than we expected, so we stopped for a snack half-way up.



We finally made it to the top of the South peak, and took a well-deserved snack break. We enjoyed ourselves until we realized that we had to get down somehow. This did not come as a surprise, but it did cause some concern, as the way down was not obvious. We weren't sure whether we wanted to go for the traverse to the north peak, so we descended the ledges of the West face in the general direction of the North peak. The way down, much like the way up, was not obvious. Maybe descending more directly from the peak would have been easier, it's hard to know.

Eventually we determined that it would be easier and simpler to just go over the North peak, so we started in that direction. At last, the route was easy to find, and having found our way we stopped for a snack.

The trip up and down North Terminal peak was mercifully straightforward. We took the fast exit down the snow slope, easily over the bergschrund and off the glacier in good time. It was a relief to get off the glacier and stop for a much-needed snack just as a few raindrops started to fall.



All that remained was the bone-jarring hike back down the Perley Rock trail. Judging by the summit register, South Terminal doesn't get climbed very often. It was a long day, but a fun climb. At 8pm we made it back to the van. We found a place to camp, had dinner, and went to sleep.

Total ascent/descent - 2100m
Guidebook time - 12-14 hours
Brenda & Andrew time - 15 hours
Snacks consumed - 2 PB&J sandwiches, 2 cheese sandwiches, 2 pastries, several granola bars
Photos: https://goo.gl/photos/2atHHySuQF1QQpcE7

West Ridge Mount Tupper

Update June 2017:
Google killed the Picasaweb photo service and the photos in this post no longer click through to larger versions. Here's the album containing the photos: https://goo.gl/photos/GGrx3D6o41gU6mbw7

Craig, Brenda and I hiked up to Hermit Meadows on Saturday afternoon.



Much less snow this year and we didn't even need to dig out a tent platform.



The next morning we got an early start and made our way across snow and braided streams to the start of the ridge. The snow was still quite supportive and there were only a few occasions when one of us would disappear up to the waist with a startled "oomph!".



The route wanders up and down across easy terrain until you reach the first steep part. It looks quite imposing at first but the rock is solid (for a change) and the holds are all there. We were tentative for the first few meters but eventually got into a rhythm as the Tupper glacier began to drop away beneath our feet.



We got the rope out for a little traverse, and then for the 5.6 corner pitch, and before we knew it we were on the final pitch to the summit. We'd been worried about the weather all the way up, but it had held for us and we had great views from the top.



We were 5 1/2 hours up and we spent another 4 hours rappelling, down climbing, and slip-sliding back to the tents. The snow had softened considerably and there were quite a few more "oomphs!" on the way down than there had been on the way up.

We packed up, shouldered our heavy sacks, and trudged down the trail back to the highway. A great trip. More photos here.

Skyladder, Mount Andromeda

Update May 2017: Google killed Picasa. So the photos in the text won't click through. Eat a dick Google. Here are the photos on Google Photos: https://goo.gl/photos/aiHusVSDSCZbYEyu6

Skyladder on Mount Andromeda has developed into a bit of a bugbear for me over the years. When we lived back east Skyladder was always on our todo list during the annual summer climbing pilgrimage; but our trips always took place in late summer and inevitably the route was out of shape with bare ice and nasty rockfall. Eventually we'd been in several times to look at Skyladder. Yeah, I know, "look at" is a euphemism for "we went to climb it but got scared and ran away in a comical Monty Pythonesque fashion". It's probably the reason I've climbed Mount Athabasca so many times; it's right next door to Andromeda.

The solution? Climb it in June. Brilliant. Apparently we're a bit late with this revelation since I don't think anyone climbs the route in summer any more. But still, we can be taught!

Ross and I left a bleary-eyed Brenda in the van at the climber's bivy at 3:30am. She had a full day of studying ahead of her, but that wouldn't start until after several more hours of sleep. It was dark, cold, sleeting, and miserable. Egad how I envied her! I don't think we really expected to get very far but nevertheless we turned on our headlamps and began trudging along the road and up the moraines. We found our way through the icefall (not without incident), dodged crevasses across the glacier, made an end run around the bergschrund, and began kicking steps upwards.



The usual A common method of climbing Skyladder is to top out on the route and to then make a long traverse over to the Andromeda-Athabasca col. A number of raps gets you back down to the glacier. However it's notorious for getting people lost, especially in poor visibility, and visibility was decidedly lacking.

We'd resolved to kick really good steps just in case we needed to descend the same way we came up. This seemed like a great idea when I was in the lead making the steps. Unfortunately the frailty of our plan was revealed when I was later following Ross's steps; by the time I'd placed my feet in twenty of his steps the rest had disappeared. The blowing snow simply filled them in within minutes. I was mildly alarmed when I realized this but by then the weather was showing signs of improvement so we continued on up.



We'd set a turnaround time of 1:00PM. By 12:40 we'd basically completed the route but still hadn't actually topped out. The weather was still pretty dodgy so, much to Ross's dismay, we began heading down. Of course after we'd descended a few hundred meters the weather began to clear out in earnest and we were left agonizing over our decision. Oh well. The sunny skies made the descent seem easy despite not having any steps to follow down. We were back on the glacier in an hour and a half.



Almost without us noticing it had turned into a beautiful day; the sun was blazing and the fresh snow was dazzling. It was only at this point that I stupidly remembered to put on sunscreen and sunglasses. Alas, it was far too late and I already had the sunburn of my life. I'd even managed to burn my eyelids. The next couple of days were agony as my eyelids and face swelled up painfully.

Anyway, we trundled across the glacier, Ross fell into a couple of crevasses up to his waist, and we generally enjoyed our walk back to the van. Brenda, bless her, met us part way up the moraine with fresh water and snacks.

Jimmy Lake

Bit late with this one...

Two weekends ago we loaded the old canoe onto the van and headed to Jimmy Lake to meet Fred. Ostensibly we were going there to do some fishing, but since Brenda and I only have one fishing road between the two of us, and one of us is a vegetarian, let's just say that the fish needn't have been overly worried.

On the first part of the drive, on paved road, we traveled 157kms in about an hour and a half. On the second part of the drive, on a logging road, we traveled a whopping 20kms in one hour. 16-year old VW vans don't like logging roads.

Some highlights of the trip were two loons tearing madly around the lake chasing each other, a baby deer with it's mother, and studying a bald eagle on its nest as we casually floated by in the canoe.

We also noticed loads of bright blue damselflies congregating on lily pads. Looking closely we realized that (what we assume to be) female damselflies were hatching in the water and clinging to the underside of the lily pads. The males were patiently waiting for them to come to the surface. As soon as a female got too close to the edge of a lily pad, a male would grab her and haul her to the surface and try to mate. There was a lot happening on those lily pads and we spent quite a while watching, enthralled.

That's about it. Fred claims to have caught a good sized rainbow trout, but since it was already cleaned and in the freezer when we arrived, we're a bit dubious.

Bruins Ridge

We were hoping to get over to the north side of Bruins Pass again on Saturday. The weather forecast was pretty grim as we started up the Connaught on a wet and grey morning. We knew that we were pushing our luck with the weather but you "need to give the mountain a chance" as they say.

There were about 5cms of moist new snow over a hard surface. As we plodded upwards, and the terrain became steeper, our skins seemed to delight in randomly losing their purchase and skidding out from underneath us. Comical at first, but it got old in a hurry. The skins were balling up with frustrating regularity too.

But we fought the good fight and struggled on upwards. At first it looked as though we would be rewarded for our efforts too; a fleeting patch of blue sky appeared providing us with a view back towards Cheops.



The wind changed direction, the clouds churned up, and we actually had a reasonable window of good weather. After half an hour this was our view to Bruins Pass.



But even in this photo it already looked as though our window was beginning to shut. A few minutes later this was Steve pointing to the same rocky outcrop.



We hunkered down for a while under the tarp to wait-and-see. Snacks were eaten. The tarp layout was "improved" fifty times. More snacks were eaten. Chunks of snow were cut off the cornice and rolled down the slope to disappear in the mist. Old Easter candy was discovered in the bottom of a lunch bag and passed around to much acclaim.



But, reluctantly, we admitted defeat and carried our skis part way down the ridge until it was wide enough to begin skiing down.



Ah well, you win some and you lose some. Between yard work and family visits I'm sure we'll be out again this spring.

Forever Young

Wow. Wow!

We skied Forever Young on Saturday, and today, two days later, we're still basking in the glow of good memories.

Forever Young is a steep couloir that drops off the north edge of Young's Peak. It's about 500m high and 40+ degrees for much of it's length. It's also extremely narrow in places, or at least it seems really narrow to weekend warriors like ourselves. And so yes I feel that we can legitimately use the term "couloir" rather than "gully" :)




(Photo from 2008)

The day started clear and warm as we skied up the Illecillewaet Glacier. The four of us were sweating buckets, but the great morning weather had turned foul and cold by midday. The visibility deteriorated so badly that we double-checked the GPS to make sure it was properly tracking our route, just in case. It's pretty easy to get turned around on the Illecillewaet in bad light.

We made our way over the rolling snow towards Youngs Peak. Along the way we met up with another party that were heading for the Young's Peak traverse; they were hunkered down to wait for the weather to improve. We said our hello's and continued over to the top of Forever Young where, admittedly, I could feel the butterflies beginning to form in my stomach.

It's just so bloody intimidating! The first turns are steep, but the real kicker is that the slope is convex; as you look down the gully it kind of rolls away and gets even steeper, hiding most of the run from view. The walls loom ominously above and pinch off part way down too for good measure. It's quite a sight.



It was simply an awesome ski; steep, exhilarating, thrilling, kinda nerve wracking, but most of all, exhausting!



We'd make 4 or 5 turns and then quickly scoot to the side to catch our breath and let our sloughs run past. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, the walls opened up a bit and the angle let up just a little, and we were left with a fantastic run down the lower third of the slope.

Best ski of the season, bar none. More photos here.

Bruins North and 8812 Bowl

We expected that the only place we were going to find good snow this weekend was on north facing terrain at high elevations. Having never skied the north side of Bruins Pass before, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to go up and have a look. Nick and Steve joined us at the Visitor's Centre and we were away.

It sure gets quiet this time of year in Rogers Pass; I think people are just tired of skiing by now. After six months of it I was kind of feeling the same way as we trudged up the Connaught Drainage and started up Bruins Ridge. It's hard to get motivated when it's hot and the snow is beginning to melt away.

Spring seems to have arrived early and we were reminded again of how much less snow there is this year. Here's a photo of Bruins Ridge from March of last year (first photo) and another from the same spot this weekend (second photo).





It's a month later, and the ridge is pretty wind-blasted, but it still seems like a big difference.

Anyway enough about that. Our enthusiasm was quickly restored when we dropped over Bruins Pass. It was cold and wintry, the snow was powdery and untouched, and the skiing was fantastic. After one run down we were all smiles. We skinned back up and on a lark boot packed to the top of 8812.



We had another run down and it was even better. By the time we had skinned back up to Bruins we'd logged almost 2000 meters of climbing on the day. I think that's the biggest ski day we've ever had. The return ski down the east facing 8812 bowl was...er, marginal to put it charitably, so we won't talk about that. But overall certainly one of our best days this season.

Sorcerer Lake Lodge

Another annual hut trip has come and gone. It's hard to believe that 12 months have passed since I wrote about our last hut trip. Where does the time go?

We have already been to Sorcerer twice. It's such an amazing place that when we last flew out from the lodge back in 2007 we booked a week in 2009 as we stepped off the helicopter. Of all of the huts we've been to, Sorcerer has the most impressive and varied terrain, the best accommodations, the nicest owner, and is the most professionally operated of them all. You've got a special place Tannis. Thanks!

The trip got off to a good start in Golden where we stayed at the Ponderosa Motel. When the proprietor learned that we were repeat customers he was barely able to restrain his enthusiasm. As we organized gear in the parking lot he chatted and joked with us. At one point he ducked into the office and returned with Ponderosa Motel ball caps for each of us!

This time of year you can get full-on spring or full-on winter conditions. Thankfully we had conditions that were more like winter with cold temperatures, generally clear skies and just a hint of spring in the air. The March 1st layer was still reactive at tree line. Although the avalanche conditions generally improved throughout the week we still avoided some of the steeper lines that we've skied in past years. There was also less snow in general, a common story in the Selkirks this year. There were many holes and fractures showing on the glaciers that we'd never seen before. We often wore harnesses and probed for crevasses whenever we stopped for lunch or something.



There were a couple of pine martens around the hut this year. They were incredibly bold. One only very reluctantly gave way to let me through to the sauna; he growled and hissed at me as I passed. Having left a pair sandals on the deck I returned to find one of them missing. Thief! I was miffed. From then on, after returning from a day of skiing I would wander around the hut with a shovel and dig up random marten holes looking for the stolen booty. It seemed a hopeless endeavor but I persevered.

On the fourth day I followed a particularly well worn marten path away from the hut towards the lake. It led to series of deep rocky nooks. As I approached actually saw the little bugger clambering up the cliff side away from me. I scrambled down to the lake and lowered myself head first between the rocks to peer into the darkness. As my eyes slowly adjusted I slowly discerned the outline of...a sandal! There it was far back in the deepest nook. Aha you little bugger, victory is mine. Well, victory of a sort anyway since there wasn't much sandal left. Still...screw you marten.

Here's the link to a schwack of photos and a video starring one of the infamous martens.

Asulkan Cabin

Our trip to the Asulkan Hut this weekend seemed to mark the transition from winter to spring skiing. It began in the customary manner; clagged in and misty. We wondered if we would even be able to venture above the hut. We shouldn't have worried. An incredible overnight gale had the hut shuddering on it's foundations and made the simple task of collecting snow for water a major ordeal. But the wind blew away the clouds and we awoke the next morning to blue skies and the sight of an impressive avalanche that had crashed down off Mount Leda and continued down towards the mouse trap.



And thus began a remarkable two days of skiing. Blue skies, warm temperatures, great snow. It couldn't have been any better. Even when we had completely exhausted ourselves we didn't want to call it a day and just kept going up for more. A few in the group put in something over 2000m of vertical on Saturday. The place looked like heli-ski terrain by Sunday.



We had some visitors on Saturday afternoon.



Avalanche control was on-going in the valley and the helicopter had been dispatched to prevent a group from dropping into Loop Brook from Sapphire Col without a permit. You'd think the prospect of getting a Howitzer shell in the head would be enough of a deterrent?

Anyway they stopped in at the hut to do some repairs and to grace us with their presence.

How does that joke go...What's the difference between God and Mountain Guide? God doesn't think he's a Mountain Guide.

Okay not quite relevant but the idea is there. I guess they meant well.

Oh one last thing. We met a guy named Grog Still. He reminded us of someone but we couldn't quite place the name. He was shooting video with someone he kept referring to as "The Slough Monkey". Anyway he said he'd send us some footage. If he does we'll post it here.

In the meantime here's our own little video.

Bonney Moraines and NRC Gully

On Saturday we headed up Loop Brook and skied in the Bonney Moraines. The moraines are a complicated mix of old, twisted, and interlaced ridges just below the glacier on Mount Bonney.

Despite the relatively normal sounding avalanche bulletin everyone was quite wary of the avalanche conditions. "Spooky" is a word that avalanche professionals seem to be using a lot this year. Looks like some skiers just avoided getting caught in this little nasty:



Anyway we did a couple of laps on one of the gentler moraines and then ventured onto the steeper treed slopes on far skiers right.

The skiing was, in a word, awesome.



Steve, Nick, and Fred headed home after skiing on Saturday. Brenda and I stayed and we had a short day in NRC Gully on Sunday.



If NRC wasn't just a giant avalanche path we would ski here more often! The turns-to-effort ratio is brilliant; you simply step out of the car, go up, rip off your skins, and ski right back down to the car.

But the fact remains that NRC is simply a giant avalanche path and I find it a little spooky.

Earlier this year a truly big avalanche ripped through NRC that ran beyond it's normal runout and tore up mature timber. We found lots of evidence of this event. Most of the trees have fresh scars on their uphill sides like this one:



The skiing was so-so. NRC is west facing, compared to Bonney which faces north, and the warm sun earlier in the week had made a crust that lurked about 30cm below the surface. We managed to avoid any classic telemark-death-crust-face-plants, but, like the crust itself, the possibility was always there, lurking!

Zoa Peak

We skied at Zoa Peak on Saturday. Previous visits here have left us a bit underwhelmed but maybe we've just been unlucky. This time we really enjoyed ourselves and have a new found appreciation for the place. Good visibility too so we were able to look around a bit. There's plenty of scope for exploration here.

The theme for the day was surface hoar; it was everywhere, glinting in the sun, tinkling noisily, and shooting ahead of us in ethereal fast-moving surface sloughs as we skied.

Ice Climbing at Trout Creek

Ice climbing in the Okanagan? Yup.

I used to do a fair bit of ice climbing when I lived in Quebec, before I discovered backcountry skiing anyway. Skiing has a much more agreeable fear-to-fun ratio. But I was never any good at it really and I've only been out a handful of times in the past several years. War has been described as "long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror", and this, too, can be applied to ice climbing..."long periods of freezing-to-death punctuated by moments of sheer terror".

So I scraped the rust and cobwebs off my now dated looking ice tools, packed a thermos of hot tea, a down jacket, enormous thick gloves, a balaclava; everything I could think of to keep warm. Sean had been somewhat vague about our destination, so despite the warm temperatures in Kelowna I was prepared for the worst.

I needn't have worried. We had a fun and easy day of top roping and the greater hazard lay in overheating rather than freezing to death. One of the bigger challenges was in trying to avoid the cactii as we set up a top rope. Those buggers are not to be trifled with.

So yeah, ice climbing in the Okanagan. Not like the old days at Lake Willoughby in Vermont.

Trout Creek with our climb on the right


Me (and a much appreciated top-rope)


Sean's nemesis

Asulkan Cabin

A memorable trip to the Asulkan Cabin this weekend. Snow stability in the alpine is really good right now and people are skiing big, bold lines all over the place. As we climbed up to the hut on Friday we saw a conga line of people dropping down Forever Young, a steep and narrow couloir that lines the north side of Youngs Peak. That one is on our to do list but not for this weekend. However over the course of this trip we did get up Youngs Peak from the Asulkan side (we had previously been up from the Illecillewaet side) and also had a great time skiing below Mount Jupiter on the west side of the Asulkan Valley.

Steve and Claude were originally to start skiing at 3:00PM on Friday afternoon, planning to arrive at the hut slightly after dark. But they didn't get 10 steps from the trailhead before Steve had a catastrophic binding failure. After a desperate run to Revelstoke to rent gear they eventually arrived at the hut at 11:30PM to find us all, somewhat guiltily, ensconced in our sleeping bags. "If you think I'm going to be quiet you can forget it!" announced Steve as they stomped around in the dark cabin.

We met Katie, Mark, Sean, and Yann and also caught up with Dave who we last saw on Know Mountain in December. Thanks for organizing a great weekend Steve.

Forever Young


Asulkan Cabin


Youngs Peak Headwall


Yann, Andrew, Brenda, Katie, Henry, Dave, Steve, Fred on Youngs Peak




More photos

Little Sifton Col and Puff Daddy

Permits were finally available this weekend. We grabbed one for Hermit and headed up Grizzly Shoulder towards Little Sifton Col with Nick. Visibility was reasonable and our plan was to drop over the col and return to the highway via Hermit Meadows.

We dug a couple of pits on the ridge above Grizzly Shoulder, the logic being that we would be descending a similar aspect in Hermit. We got some poor compression test results on an ESE aspect @ 2250 meters on yet another sun crust over facet layer about 15cm down. Higher up the wind had wreaked havoc and it was basically dust over crust from here on up.

By the time we reached the col at around 1:30 the weather was changing and the visibility was deteriorating a bit. The north facing descent from the col is really steep. We negotiated our way around the cornice and had a good long examination of the snow. The top 20-30cm was a rock hard crust sitting on a 5cm layer of crappy facets. It was a tough call. It seemed like it would take a lot to release the slope, but if it did go that it would go in a big way. We had one vote for skiing it, one vote for bailing, and one abstention. We bailed.

But all was not lost! Armed with the permit we could detour into Puff Daddy and save the day. We had never skied this line before. Wow it was fantastic. Steep lines and plenty of space between the trees. We whooped and hollered our way down to the highway and wondered why we had never skied here before.

The next day we met with Tim, an old friend, roommate, and climbing buddy of mine from Montreal. Years ago we had scared ourselves silly together on some of our first alpine climbs. Sometimes I wonder how we survived. He now lives in Lethbridge and was on his way to a locum in Nelson.

Tim had never skied in Rogers Pass before so we were keen to show him a good day. The weather was awesome with blue sky from horizon to horizon. With memories of Puff Daddy fresh in our heads we decided to go back again. After climbing up Grizzly Shoulder for the umpteenth time this season we popped up onto the ridge. It was a stunning view and Tim was all smiles.

The day was young and we decided to do a couple of laps higher up before dropping into Puff Daddy proper. The skiing was great and thank goodness it was because the descent down Puff Daddy was a complete fiasco!

Oh man I don't know where we went wrong. We thrashed through trees, skidded down dodgy gullies, and crashed in the crusty snow. It basically just sucked. We were desperately trying to find the brilliant line that we had skied only 24 hours before. The smile was long gone from Tim's face.

I was convinced that we were too far left so we kept traversing to the right thinking we'd eventually find the good skiing, but it eluded us.

Eventually we came across a creek and heard some voices. Peering through the trees we saw several people descending a well worn path. We were completely bewildered. Where the heck were all these people coming from in the middle of nowhere?

Then the truth dawned on us. We had traversed so far to the right that we had reached the main uptrack leading into the Connaught Drainage. We couldn't believe it. Even now, sitting at home typing this, I'm not sure how we screwed it up so badly.

I'm sure it'll all seem pretty funny...eventually. Thankfully we have a GPS track from the first run. This is how Puff Daddy is supposed to be skied...







More photos.